Media Release: Family violence related offences contribute to increases in Breaches of orders

The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) released the Victorian recorded crime statistics for the year ending 31 March 2020 today.

In the 12 months to 31 March 2020 the number of criminal incidents increased by 6.1% or 23,430 incidents to 409,841. The criminal incident rate increased 4.3% to 6,111.5 incidents per 100,000 Victorians.

The number of recorded offences increased by 5.3% or 27,095 offences to 542,626, while the offence rate increased by 3.5% to 8,091.5 offences per 100,000 Victorians in the last 12 months.

Recorded offences related to a family incident increased in the last 12 months, up 5.0% to 100,480 offences. Breaches of orders increased 5.1% to 67,007 offences in the last 12 months and of these 47,776 offences were family violence related offences. This was an increase of 6.1% or 2,740 offences for family violence related Breach of orders offences in the last 12 months.

Alleged offender incidents increased by 3.5% (5,959 incidents) to 177,882 in the last 12 months, while the alleged offender incident rate increased by 1.7% to 3,024.7 per 100,000 population.

In the last 12 months, the total number of victim reports increased by 8.9% to 326,403. The business/organisation victim reports increased by 9.5% to 89,449. The person victim reports increased by 8.6% to 236,954, while the victimisation rate increased by 6.8% to 3,533.4 reports per 100,000 Victorians.

Family related incidents increased 5.8% in the last 12 months to the highest on record, 85,923 incidents. The rate of family incidents recorded increased by 4.0% to 1,281.3 incidents per 100,000 population.

CSA Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said that “the number of family incidents recorded by Victoria Police was the highest on record in the 12 months to 31 March 2020. During this period family violence related offences (83.7%) were the main contributor to increases in Breach of orders offences.”

More detailed information is available on the latest crime data webpage.

For further information please contact: 

Crime Statistics Agency
Email: info@crimestatistics.vic.gov.au (External link) 

^ Please note that movements over time in recorded crime data may be impacted by changes in legislation and operational police practice.